Empire Rising: Spain

Chapter 65: Chapter 64: Military Industry Relies on Imitation

As Kadir Bruno dedicated himself to Carlo’s orders, far away in Madrid, Carlo was ending his leisurely lifestyle.

After a long period of waiting, Carlo’s Royal Armory had finally taken shape, recruiting some workers from Spanish weapon workshops and poaching rifle design experts from countries such as France and Italy.

Starting this year, rifles will enter a new era, the era of bolt-action rifles.

The prosperity of bolt-action rifles will continue all the way to World War II, to be replaced then by semi-automatic and automatic rifles.

As the main equipment of the Spanish Army for nearly the next century, Carlo placed considerable importance on the development of bolt-action rifles.

In fact, as early as last year, the Swiss had already developed the first practical bolt-action rifle, named the Vitali Rifle.

This rifle was not only purchased in large quantities by the Swiss Army but also exported to Italy, which is all the information Carlo currently has.

In addition to Italy, other countries are also constantly experimenting with the research of bolt-action rifles. In the coming years and decades, a large number of famous firearms will continue to emerge and demonstrate significance in multiple wars.

Carlo’s first task for the Royal Armory was to go to Switzerland to purchase a batch of Vitali Rifles and design Spain’s first bolt-action rifle based on its advantages.

Currently, it is still very challenging for the Royal Armory to independently develop a bolt-action rifle. It’s not that one cannot be developed, but that the resulting rifle may have many shortcomings, with safety and stability not guaranteed.

Rifles are the most important weapon for soldiers. If safety and stability cannot be guaranteed, how can soldiers confidently carry such a weapon onto the battlefield?

Therefore, it is essential to learn from foreign military factories about bolt-action rifle concepts and absorb their advantages before independently developing one’s own bolt-action rifle.

At least, the Swiss rifle has already received dual endorsement from Switzerland and Italy, with its safety and stability guaranteed.

Since coming to the Royal Military Factory, Carlo naturally wasn’t dealing only with rifle issues.

The most important weapons in the military are twofold: the rifle as a light weapon and artillery as a heavy weapon.

The good news is that after the Franco-Prussian War, Germany and France eliminated a large number of cannons.

It’s not that these cannons had issues, but in peacetime, Germany and France do not need to arm so many cannons.

How to handle these second-hand cannons used only during the Franco-Prussian War? The answer is to sell them at a low price to other European countries to reduce the substantial investment from the war.

Compared to French artillery, Carlo is actually more interested in purchasing Prussian Krupp Cannons.

The reason is simple: during the Franco-Prussian War, the Germans taught the French a lesson with the Krupp Cannons, and currently, the Germans are undoubtedly ahead in artillery.

French artillery is certainly at an excellent European level, but compared to the superior Krupp Cannons, it’s slightly inferior.

The current Royal Armory is divided into the Rifle Design Group and the Artillery Design Group.

Carlo also assigned a new task to the Artillery Design Group, which is to go to Germany to purchase a batch of Krupp Cannons and attempt to replicate them, ensuring Spain has the technology to produce Krupp Cannons.

Producing them domestically is more economical than purchasing from Germany. Though Krupp Company’s output is larger, and their production costs might be lower.

However, the export of such heavy weaponry is marked up significantly and would not be more cost-effective than self-production in Spain.

Moreover, artillery technology is also quite crucial.

Artillery, besides being used in the army as important firepower support for infantry, can also be mounted on warships, becoming the primary mode of firepower output for current warships.

Artillery technology is only just starting now, and by learning from German artillery technology, at the very least, Spain can ensure it doesn’t fall behind other great powers in terms of artillery.

The current task for the entire Royal Armory is to purchase a batch of weaponry from countries with excellent designs, and then continuously study and replicate these purchased weapons.

This situation is unavoidable. Although Carlo has heavily invested in the armory, as a newly established armory, it is difficult to have a complete capability for independent weapons research and development.

Purchasing excellent weapons and replicating them is more cost-effective and reliable compared to independent research and production.

Furthermore, replicating weapons is not shameful; other countries are doing the same.

Even in later generations, when exporting one’s weapons, one should be prepared for the exported weapons to be extensively studied and replicated by other countries.

This is why in weapon research, there exists the cycle of eliminating a generation, exporting a generation, equipping a generation, and developing a generation.

Generally, more advanced weapons are rarely exported; those that can be are often products nearing obsolescence within the country, with the intention to generate some revenue to lay the groundwork for developing more powerful weapons.

After injecting a new budget into the Royal Armory, Carlo can only hope that the armory, after purchasing new rifles and cannons, can quickly master the technology and achieve replication.

This may take several years, but it is ultimately advantageous despite only being the initial goal; the task for the Royal Military Factory remains challenging.

Independent production of weaponry is nothing to the great powers; what the Royal Military Factory aims to achieve in the future is the continuous development of new weaponry, ensuring its weapons remain at the world-class level.

Currently, among all of Carlo’s ventures, the armory is the most costly.

If it hadn’t acquired more than a dozen factories, the income from the newspaper alone would not be able to sustain the armory.

After all, those who can afford newspapers aren’t illiterate, and they must first be able to understand the content of the newspapers.

Moreover, Spain’s illiteracy rate is as high as seventy percent, which is one of the reasons the newspaper cannot thrive.

Fortunately, there are plenty of nobles around Madrid, coupled with factory owners, the middle class, and some high-income skilled workers, ensuring Carlo’s Sun Newspaper has stable daily sales.

Compared to the already bottlenecked newspaper, Carlo’s several steel factories are undoubtedly more profitable.

Whether for the expansion of Spanish industry or for fattening his wallet, Carlo issued orders for the steel mills to continuously expand scale and increase steel production in the coming years.

Anyway, with funding secured by the Royal United Bank, as long as the expansion of these industries isn’t overly aggressive, there generally won’t be major issues.

Expanding industry in current Spain won’t result in losses, as Spain’s future development plans involve extensive infrastructure construction, with the railway alone determining that the steel mills won’t lose money.